“You were inventing your book,” Julia broke in. “And then you went down to the Spanish hospital somewhere in the South, didn’t you? And all those German refugees—”

“There was a reservoir of good will to be tapped. That’s what I really meant. People listened to one.”

“Yes,” Damon frowned, “I suppose that’s true. But we were such children, Edward. We really were.”

“And now we’ve grown up?” Julia asked lightly.

“Julia thinks I’ll never grow up”—Damon ruffled his hair—“and perhaps it’s true.”

“It’s the effect of science,” Edward teased (this was an old war between them, a war of many skirmishes, safe skirmishes Julia thought with relief). “You scientists have always been children, you and your dangerous toys.”

Julia hardly listened as the familiar tunes were played. She drank her martini, half listening, more watching the two men’s faces, the ever-changing weather in Damon’s, his eager flashing look, responsive not so much to Edward as to his own thoughts—and Edward’s, opaque, taut round the eyes, concealing (so she sensed) a permanent state of anguish. How could one help such a man, who was not able to talk about himself, whose personal dignity was such that, almost, it precluded intimacy? While she thought these things, Edward had apparently changed the subject. They were talking, she gathered, about the strangeness and rarity in America of children’s living on in their father’s house, as Damon had chosen to do.

“We did find it strange at first,” Julia reminded him. “At first I had every intention of changing things around,” she added, with a smile at Damon, “but I wasn’t allowed to. Even that stuffed fish in the hall, you know? For years I wasn’t allowed to throw it away.”

“My grandfather caught that bass,” Damon said seriously.

“I’ve no doubt he did, but that didn’t mean we had to live with the corpse for the rest of our lives.” But Damon did not really like to be teased about this family feeling he had so strongly, and it was time she thought of serving the dinner, so she got up, only pausing a moment in the door because she felt she must just hear Edward’s answer as Damon, wanting to change the subject, asked, “What was your father’s house like?”

The question gave Edward pause. He clasped his hands round his knees and rocked back and forth as he launched into an ironic description. “Oh, you know, golden oak, overstuffed furniture, glassed-in bookcases supporting casts of Greek statues with fig leaves applied, reproductions of Botticelli in Florentine frames, little inlaid Persian tables—oh”—he rocked back and forth a moment, evoking it all—“and those glossy glazed brown tiles round the fireplace—Need I say more?”

“Well,” Julia made a parting thrust as she left them, “the bass was hardly a thing of beauty!”